the history of cybercrime

at the beginning of the 1970`s, criminals regularly committed crimes via telephone lines.
the perpetrators were called phreakers and the discovered that the telephone system in
america functioned on the basis of certain tones. they are going to imitate these tones to
make free calls.

john draper was a well-known phreaker who worked on it daily; he toured america in his
van and made use of public telephone systems to make free calls. steve jobs and steve
wozniak were inspired by this man, and even joined him. of course they all ended up on
the right path: steve jobs and wozniak founded apple, the well-known computer
company.

hacking in the 80`s

actually, there was no real cybercrime until the 1980`s. one person hacked another
persons computer to find, copy or manipulate personal data information. the first person
to be founded guilty of cybercrime was ian murphy, also known as captain zap, and that
happened in the year 1981. he had hacked the american telephone company to
manipulate its internal clock, so that users could still make free calls at peak times.

hackers, however, proceeded in different ways over time. although telephone companies
were the very first target, banks, web shops and even private individuals quickly followed
suit. nowadays, online banking is very popular, and that also carries a big risk. for
example, hackers can copy log-in codes and names or retrieve passwords from credit
cards and bank accounts. the result is that one can just empty accounts or make
purchases online with someone else account!